How Should a Person Be? (8 page)

Then I glanced at the painting of the Statue of Liberty
on the wall behind us and wondered,
Where would all of
America be—­and ­wouldn't the flame long be extinguished in the sea—­if not for that tall girl's steady wrist?

MARGAUX

You know, this video totally reminds me of once when I was at a party in Texas. I was about thirteen years old, and there was this girl there who was getting pissed on by these two guys. And she really was the most lost girl.

SHEILA

Oh.

MARGAUX

I just wish that she had a bit of what this girl has—­her freedom, her shamelessness.

Pause.

You know, sometimes I get really excited thinking about autism. I think,
Oh! Over there in Silicon Valley there are all these kids with autism
.
.
.
and I think maybe it's an advantageous human trait. Maybe it's sort of wonderful to—

SHEILA

—to lack feelings?

MARGAUX

To lack an overwhelming empathy. I sometimes feel pretty paralyzed by my own feelings of empathy. And it's still such a problem—­shame. Maybe what I want in my life is to cut out a bit of the empathy and a bit of the shame.

The next morning, we lay on the beach for several hours, then swam so far out to sea that a lifeguard in his motorized
vehicle had to drive onto the beach and blow his whistle to
get us to come back to shore, while everyone stared. We dried ourselves off in the sand and went to see our final fair of the trip, Art Basel, which we had to line up for and pay twenty dollars to get into. Standing in the cold, cavernous,
convention-center air, we picked up a full-­color map to
help
find our way around. There ­were coffee kiosks everywhere in case visitors grew weary, and it was at Art Basel that we found the wealthiest patrons and the most expensive art. The fair was being sponsored by a bank. On the banners
hung outside the building and in the corridors leading into
the rooms where the panel discussions and the temporary
bookstores ­were, was this message:
USB welcomes you to Art Basel Miami Beach.
Below it was a quote from Andy
Warhol:
Everybody's sense of beauty is different from everybody ­else's.

I asked Margaux what she thought the quote meant. Glancing at it, she grimaced. “Oh yeah. It's saying you can be rich and stupid about art. You're all welcome.”

Several hours later, growing tired from the art and the cold, we left. Out in front, at the bottom of a short flight of stairs, a young woman sat staring off into infinity, slowly winding a ball of string around her body and the handrails. We paused to glance at her, then walked off into the streets, where every one of the ­houses was painted a different pastel color: pink, yellow, orange, green, blue.

Then I heard my friend say calmly, “I don't care about success. I have it in my heart now.”

After the sun went down, Margaux and I went strolling
through the
big, fluorescent-­lit shops. We bought the same
yellow dress, then met up with Cappy, who was down with his shipping business, not with his own paintings, as in the past.

Now the three of us ­were walking through the streets, along with all the women in their tight skirts and cleavage and tans and makeup and high heels, who ­were holding on to their big, bulky boyfriends for balance.

Cappy led us through the baronial doors of a fancy blue
hotel, and we went out to the back where there was a giant
pool and very elegant people sitting at long tables, eating
salmon and steak and drinking lots of wine. We sat on
a half-­wall at a short distance from everyone. Cappy and
Margaux
began saying they ­were hungry. “Hold on
,
” I said,
excitedly, and I pretended to be a waiter, and took the neglected plates and goblets away from the patrons and
delivered them to Margaux and Cappy; we drank the half-­drunk wine and ate up all the leftovers.

“So, Margaux,” asked Cappy, chewing, “have any of your paintings sold?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't think so. Maybe. I ­haven't asked.”

Then we went for a stroll along the beach and ran into
an old rich couple and struck up a conversation. The woman
began talking about how they ­were thinking of buying a
twenty-­three-­thousand-­dollar Ruscha print, having just come
from dinner with the gallerist who was selling it. Their collection included a Gerhard Richter, and they had so little wall space left that what­ever they bought in Miami would end up
in rotation
.

MARGAUX

That's all I hear from collectors.

CAPPY

They take something down, and then they hang the new thing.

WOMAN

We do that, but we don't sell it.

SHEILA

Yeah, because you love it.

WOMAN

We rotate it.

MARGAUX

You know, I think it's really good for artists to come ­here and see this.

WOMAN

To show that there's a lot of great art out there?

MARGAUX

And to know that it's not important.

WOMAN

What's not important?

MARGAUX

This.

As we ­were talking, my phone rang and I answered it. I recognized the lazy voice and at once felt faint, and I moved away from my friends. “Are you having a good time?” Israel asked. I said that I was. I tried to explain that we ­were talking to some rich people. “Would you like to have my cum in your mouth right now, talking to those rich people? That would be pretty good, ­wouldn't it?” Not knowing what ­else
to say, I stammered, “Yes.” When I got off the phone, I made
a new rule for myself: that I would never again take his
call—­or, anyway, not until I finished my play—­so never.

Returning to Margaux and Cappy, feeling sensitive, I noticed Margaux's face as she talked to the rich lady. She looked as she always did when she could find no value in a person—­an expression so apparent to me, and so painful, for I was sure the rich people could see it, too—­a hard, quick look of boredom and dismissal. I felt afraid whenever
I saw it, worried that one day she would turn it on me.
Coming near, I heard the woman say that it was not
necessary
for them to buy, but if they saw something they liked, they had the
ability
to buy, “though it's not like we have zillions of dollars.”

As we walked off, Margaux said, “Sure, she has so much money that she has to make up an amount of money that ­doesn't exist to say how much money she
­doesn't
have.”

I needed another drink, so we went back to the hotel and drank. Then I said, “Let's get naked and jump in
the pool.” So we stripped down to our underwear and got
in the pool. We ­were the only ones swimming. Fifteen minutes later, tiring of the pool, I beckoned to a man who was sitting nearby. “We need towels!” I cried, and he waved down a hotel man and collected three fluffy towels for us.
We swam to the edge, thanking him as we got out. The man
smiled and replied, “No problem.” It was Keanu Reeves! Margaux moved slowly away, but I hung back and talked a bit, then Margaux and I left.

Margaux grows very embarrassed as they walk away.

MARGAUX

Oh,
God
! I really wish we had seen a really more famous, more annoying celebrity! I wish we had seen a celebrity I
don't actually defend in public! But I like his work! I seriously
have on my profile, like, Werner Herzog, Laurie Anderson, Gertrude Stein, and Keanu Reeves!

SHEILA

Really?

MARGAUX

Yes! Ugh!
I just wish that all the people I liked ­were either my best friends or total strangers. As they are, of course, but
.
.
.

We stumbled into a cab and took it the six blocks to our hotel and went up the elevator into our room. In three hours, we would have to get up and fly home. As I stood by the sink, trying to wash from my favorite white dress the red wine we had spilled on it earlier that night, I chatted brightly.

SHEILA

I'm so happy with how we ­were making everyone jealous with how happy we ­were in the pool!

MARGAUX

What?
That's
crazy!
In my mind, we ­were making
ourselves
happy. I had no idea anyone was looking at us.

SHEILA

All I'm saying is: if there's a pool and people are in the pool and you're not in the pool, you want to be in the pool just like those people in the pool. It's just a fact of nature.

Sheila gets into the bed they are sharing.

MARGAUX

Hehe. You have no underpants on.

SHEILA

I don't mind. I don't object.

MARGAUX

I thought maybe you didn't know.

SHEILA

I
realize.

I immediately passed out but I forgot to shut down the tape recorder. After ten minutes, Margaux can be heard asking me,
Are you awake?
I ­wasn't, but I gave a little grunt to show that I was. Then Margaux said softly, perhaps half-­
asleep herself:
I feel like either it's a dream, or it's some kid I
know
from Texas, like this black kid, nice kid, smart kid, and he just—­he
just wanted
.
.
. he hated all the football games, but he really liked
the part when we ­were winning. And he would just make the
T-shirts from whenever we ­were winning
.
.
. and he would make everything from when we ­were winning.

After a twenty-­second pause, she spoke again:
He really ­wasn't interested in the game.

And after a thirty-­second pause:
So everybody got mad at him.

Then Margaux fell asleep, and after several minutes of silence, the tape recorder shut itself off.

•
chapter
10
•

TWO DRESSES

A week back in Toronto, Sheila receives an email from Margaux
.
.
.

1. i know i can be intense sometimes, and i know you have a lot going on, and this is not that big of a deal, but i wanted to say that it really startled me in miami when you bought the same yellow dress that i was buying.

2.
after we looked at a thousand dresses for you—­and the
yellow dress being the first dress i was considering—
­i really was surprised when you said you ­were getting it too.

3. i suggested you try it on when i thought there was only one size, but when you said you ­were also getting it, i didn't know what to say or think.

4. i think it's pretty standard that you don't buy the dress your friend is buying, but i was trying to convince myself that maybe it was okay to buy the same dress your friend is buying. you know, trying to think about it positively, hence the “we'll wear them in our music video” statement from me.

5. when you said that you'd only wear it out of town and never in toronto, it sort of seemed reasonable.

6. but not really, since of course we only exist in pictures.

7. i should have been clearer in the store about how it made me uncomfortable, or i just shouldn't have bought the dress.

8. i really do need some of my own identity. and this is pretty simple and good for the head.

9. i'm going to get rid of the dress now, cause it makes me a little sad to look at it.

10. you don't have to reply to this email.

Hurt and shocked, I did not.

 

INTERLUDE FOR FUCKING

That morning, as I was getting dressed, I fastened behind my back a lacy pink push-­up bra and pulled out from the drawer a nice pink pair of panties. The underpants suited the bra beautifully, and I smiled at this, but then I thought,
No wait, Israel said he wants to see you tomorrow, save the pink panties for tomorrow
. I hesitated back and forth, then decided to put on the pink pan­ties, since I had no intention of see
ing Israel tomorrow, or on any other day. I would never let
him see my underpants, and wanted to remind myself of
this.

The day went on, and at around noon I got a call. Israel had emailed after we spoke in Miami, saying he would call me on Saturday to make plans. I had not replied. It was only Friday, so it took me a moment to realize it was him. Then I understood that he had been thinking about me and just ­couldn't wait. My heart started beating fast. I didn't know what to do, so I told him I would call him back. I closed up the phone, unable to eat another piece of sushi, but I forced myself to put one more piece in my mouth, then I paid the young woman and left. I started walking
south, taking me at once closer to my home and to where I
knew he lived.

Just moments before, sitting at the Japa­nese restaurant, I had been leafing through the pages of the
I Ching
, which I had bought right before lunch. I hoped the book would teach me something about how to be, and had randomly opened to a page that read: “RENUNCIATION: Voluntary retreat brings good fortune to the superior man, and downfall to the inferior man.”

Walking now, and thinking it through, I saw the book was right. The only way to be faithful to my ideal of celibacy and thus finish my play would be to retreat. I would call Israel and tell him that I could not see him until July, seven months from now, which is when I believed I would be finished with it and ready to come out of my celibacy and think about men once more. I smiled and felt relieved at this plan. For the first time on my walk, I noticed what a lovely winter day it was; how everything was covered in soft white snow. My decision made me cheerful. I had no need of any man.

With new vigor and confidence and delight, I called him back. I said I ­couldn't see him the next day, but I would see him in July, when I would be ready. I told him all of this as I walked. I explained that he had gotten under my skin, and that I really did like him, but these feelings
­were not working with my plan. If I saw him, I would fall deeper into things, so I had to resist. I had never before spoken to a man in such a way—­admitting absolutely everything.

I felt calm and true until he said, “That is the most pretentious thing I have ever heard. Don't you believe in the moment? Who knows where anyone will be in July?”

I understood at once what he meant. If I did not see him
today, by July there would be another girl. Perhaps it would be the girl he would marry.

“All right,” I said. “I ­can't see you tomorrow night, but I'll meet you right now, for a walk.”

He was pleased. We agreed on the corner where we'd meet, and I rehearsed in my head what I would say when I saw him:
Sorry, all signs point to renunciation.
But when I saw him coming down the street, I only smiled at his thick black lashes, at his big brown eyes, his slimness, his pink lips. I didn't mention renunciation once.

We spent three or four hours walking, making our way down to the water. We passed a group of schoolchildren, and when a little boy ran into him and jumped away scared, Israel raised his hands, laughing. I said to myself,
He's a good man.

He told me about how, over the past year, he had thought about me often. He had a friend who rented a studio on the second floor of Katharine's gallery, right beside the room Margaux and I shared. When he went to meet his friend he'd sometimes see us sitting there, quietly working. He told me, “I thought about taking those flowers from your desk, just stuffing them in your mouth, and bending you over the desk and fucking you.”

They ­weren't flowers but mint leaves—­a present from
Margaux—
­but I did not say so.

We went into an alley, and with one hand he held my waist and with the other he pulled down the front of my jeans, slightly, as if to have a glance.

“These are pretty pan­ties,” he said.

All right, Israel, cum in my mouth. Don't let me wash it out, so when I talk to those people, I can have your cum swimming in my mouth, and I will smile at them and taste you. It will be as you wanted it, me standing there, tasting your cum, stumbling over my words. And if you see something you don't like, you can correct me later. You can take your hands and bruise my neck, keep pushing till you feel the soft flesh at the back of my throat, so the tears roll down my cheeks like they do every time you thrust your cock to the very back of my throat—­like it never was with any other man. I never always had tears rolling down my face. Even when you hear me gagging you don't stop. It's your unconcern that makes me want you to do what­ever you
want with my body, which can be for you, while yours
cannot be for me. I can see that your body must be for many
women, and though I once thought the same of mine—­that mine must be for all the men who wanted me—­I can just tease with it if you will keep on fucking me. I ­wouldn't want your cum wasted on just one girl, not when there are so many girls to take your disinterested thrusting. Fuck whichever sluts it's your fancy to fuck. You will find me in our home one day, cooking or doing your laundry, as you wish, washing your slutty underwear that some girl slutted on while you ­were out. I'll make you your meals and serve
you them, leave you alone to paint while I go into my room.
Then in the morning when we wake, you can look down, touch your cock. It's hard. Do you need me then? Tell me, as you did the first time I woke in your bed,
I like to have my cock sucked in the morning
.

All right, Israel. I will put it in my mouth. You just close your eyes. I will do my work for you in the morning.

I don't know why all of you just sit in libraries when you could be fucked by Israel. I don't know why all of you are reading books when you could be getting reamed by
Israel,
spat on, beaten up against the headboard—­with every jab,
your head battered into the headboard. Why are you all
reading? I don't understand this reading business when there
is so much fucking to be done.

It always starts off the same, easy; you just get into bed. But instead of picking up a book, you have Israel there, so no moments pass before his soft flesh is on your flesh, and his hands are on your skin like it's your skin—­not some alien skin but your skin moving from the inside.

What is there in that book anyway? What is there to be learned to­night when you could learn to suck Israel's cock?
What is there to think about when your brains could so
easily be smashed against the headboard, in which case there's
no way to think of anything?

I don't see what you're getting so excited about, snuggling
in with your book, you little bookworms, when instead
Israel could be stuffing his cock into you and teaching you a lesson, pulling down your arms, adjusting your face so he can see it, stuffing your hand into your mouth, and fucking your brains right out of your head.

I don't see why you walk down the street so easily, not
noticing that you are living half a life—­or how you move
up
to the counter to order a tuna sandwich like there is nothing ­else in the world—­when there is only
one
thing in the world
to be paying attention to right now, which is that you are not
getting your brains fucked out of your skull by Israel, and
don't you think that's a problem, you stupid, brain-­dead slut?

I'm just saying—­because I was watching you there and I thought,
This stupid fucking know-­nothing slut needs her brains scrambled by the cock of Israel
.
Her throat has never been bruised down its back by him—
is all I was thinking when I saw you ordering your sandwich.
Tuna fish
, lady? Do you have no dignity? Is your body a limp half-­body? Or is it impossible to have any dignity unless you are getting nightly reamed by Israel?

If you would like to call your mother, go and do it. The sun is shining, it's half past noon, the time for tears is now. Please tell her I said hello and that I think her daughter's a stupid cunt if she thinks she can go around the world with her priss-­ass high in the air like a queen on a throne while
not having known the humiliation of being fucked by Israel.

It is afternoon. It is eve­ning. All the people are going to sleep except Israel, who is a working man—­but sleep has
no friendship with him this week—whose sleep is being
slaughtered and slit.

I really must hand it to all the grocers in this town, to all
the flower sellers, all the pastry makers, all the people who
stand on the floor of the stock exchange with their computers and their ticker tape—­the secretaries, the office lunchers who sit in dreary underground malls and eat their lunches—­their
grungy Chinese noodles, their grungy ham and cheese—­who have no joy, who have no fucking, who have nothing but the dreariness of having never been fucked by Israel.

It's Sunday now for all you lonely fuckers, but for me it's always Sunday afternoon. There is nothing but Sundays and three in the afternoons for me now—­and even midnight is as leisurely as a stroll, all the leisure of being battered and bashed by Israel. You poor beautiful lonely suckers whose lives I never wept for until now, whose sorrow I never noticed until now, whose dreariness I never dreamed of till now, till now. Enjoy what you can of a life without the magnificent cock of Israel.

•••

Then love, which ­can't be helped, slips into the death drive. The death drive seeks comfort and knowledge of the future. It wants the final answer and is afraid of life. It is weary of life. It is weary of self-­containment, the continuation of its purpose, the channeling of the energies of the self. It wants to step into the oblivion of someone ­else, and its heart races
at annihilation. It renounces and gives up renouncing equally.
Cliffs are the friend of the death drive, particularly cliffs into another person. It wants a mutual plummeting into the
center, one into the other, like a sixty-­nine. It hopes to drive
you off your course like a car plunging into the center of the
earth. It strives for love, annihilation, comfort, and death.
Now the future is clear!
it cries. It wants to drag you down.

But if you lie still, you may find that you want to lie there in bed beside him not because of the death drive, but for a different reason, which is that you are enjoying looking at his beautiful green-­walled room and being alive—­the sun coming in with the breeze, and the drawings on the wall tacked up with clear tacks and green tacks and yellow and blue, and it is not even so much about the man beside you in the bed, but what a room, what a room!

Then, when your heart sinks again, it sinks from the death drive like a serpent creeping in—­but from another direction this time; so you thought you had closed up all the stops, but you missed this one. You missed it, and the serpent slithered in. It is death coming, masquerading as life, and blessed is the man who can see the death drive in
the woman. Blessed is he who leaves in the morning without
any promise of love. And blessed is the woman who can answer for herself, What about
living
? What is it about
living
that you want?

In the mornings, he would get up from the bed and leave. I never saw any sentiment in his eyes. He would roll up the sleeves of his shirt so slowly. Watching him dress, the careful way he did it, and how his underwear came up over the lip of his jeans, I knew he could never be mine. That casual way of dressing before a woman, slowly and deliberately, with so much attention paid to every little gesture of grooming—­though he told me that a man must never dress any better than the woman he is with.

Israel, if you ever want a child, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to sit around the table and discuss the whens and ifs of it, or how it should be done. Just hold me there with your hands and don't take your cock out when you cum. Do it as often as you want till it takes. I'll leave it for you to say. I won't ask for babies or tell you I'm not ready. Shoot it in me when you think the time is due. You know
my legs are always open for what­ever you want from me. I
won't make a fuss or complain—­but no conversations,
please, no pleading, no wondering about it all. Impregnate
me like I'm an animal that can take it
'
cause I am. When
the time is ready, just shoot me up. One night you might find yourself wanting it, after the cigarette is put out. It might occur to you in half your mind, sideways, wanting to try it out and see. Then try it out on me, fill me up with your load. I won't protest.

I am indifferent to what­ever you do to me, as long as it feels as good as it did those three times. I am indifferent to whether you turn me into a sow you lead around the ­house with a leash, or if you lash me nightly, or if you throw my body into the bed or out of it. If you want my cunt to take your cum, or to turn me into an animal who can take it, I'll learn astrology. I'll be the stupidest whore you ever met; forget everything to kiss the head of the little nothing you give me, if you want it. And if you don't want it, it's your cock's head I'll kiss when you shove it up against my lips. I don't mind. You sleep and I'll tirelessly not sleep if that's the way your cock decides it should be. What­ever your cock decides.